Joanna Howe, Associate Professor at the University of Adelaide Law School, has given an insightful interview on ABC Radio challenging the farming industry’s heavy reliance on seasonal migrant workers.
In particular, Howe notes that visa reforms by the Howard Government that gave farmers greater access to migrant workers “completely changed the nature of the workforce” by pushing Australians out of these jobs and ushering the exploitation and wage theft so prevalent across the industry:
“Over the last two decades, the Howard government visa extensions for backpackers who work in horticulture and the seasonal worker program for Pacific Island workers completely changed the nature of the workforce”…
